Fatah commits to Israel peace talks in party draft

RAMALLAH, West Bank 
The proposed new platform of the Palestinians' moderate Fatah party marginalizes the once central theme of "armed struggle" against Israel, but demands a complete Israeli settlement freeze before talks for a final peace deal can take place.

The 41-page draft proposal, published Monday, is to be presented for approval this week to Fatah's first convention in 20 years.

It's a thorough rewrite of the 1989 program, reflecting the dramatic events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the establishment of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza in 1994, two Palestinian uprisings against Israel, several rounds of peace talks, and the 2007 fall of Gaza to Fatah's rival, Hamas.

The international community and Israel will watch the three-day convention closely, particularly Fatah's continued commitment to negotiations. Israeli officials have declined to comment on the Fatah conference.

Fatah's leaders, from the late Yasser Arafat to current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, have negotiated with Israel off and on since 1993. Their failure to lead the Palestinians to statehood, along with Fatah's corruption-tainted image, have left the party increasingly demoralized.

Yet Fatah remains the West's only hope on the Palestinian side for a Mideast peace deal.

The new political program, if adopted, gives Abbas detailed marching orders for negotiations with Israel.

U.S.-backed talks broke off last year, as then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert prepared to leave office over a corruption scandal. Abbas now says he won't resume negotiations until Israel first freezes settlement construction in the West Bank, a commitment Olmert's successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, refuses to make despite growing pressure to do so from the Obama administration.

The Fatah platform says a settlement freeze is a precondition for talks, strengthening Abbas against possible attempts in the future to get him to back down.

The Fatah program says the movement's goal is a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. It rejects the idea, put forth in a Mideast peace plan known as the road map, of a provisional state as an interim step, and says negotiations should have a timetable.

Any peace deal should be put to a referendum among the Palestinians, the program said, without specifying whether diaspora Palestinians would be eligible to vote.

The proposed Fatah platform rejects Netanyahu's recent demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Abbas has said it's up to Israel how it wants to define itself.

Palestinians fear that such a recognition would mean dropping their demand for the "right of return" of Palestinians displaced as a result of the 1948 Mideast war over Israel's creation. With their descendants, the refugees now number several million people.

The Fatah program calls for a fair solution for the refugees and insists on the refugees' right of return, as well as compensation. In Israel, there's broad opposition to absorbing large numbers of refugees in a peace deal, for fear such an influx would threaten the Jewish nature of the state.

Still, the Fatah position would not necessarily prevent a peace deal; creative compromises have been floated in previous peace talks.